When permanent numbers were introduced in 1974, Ferrari had 11 and 12, and the only reason they have maintained 27 and 28 throughout the years was because they had to switch with Williams when Jones won his title, and then had 15 barren years which rendered them stuck with those numbers (with the exception of 1990, but that changed again when McLaren won; if anyone else had won, 27 and 28 would have stuck with McLaren).

Have its fans realise it should be a sport, not entertainment, and make them tone down their incessant demand for ‘excitement’. This is what has lead to DRS, the tyres and everything else, and to past rule changes to mitigate winners’ advantages. You will have races such as the 1978 Argentine GP, or 1979 French GP, the 2005 Malaysian GP or 2005 Japanese GP; they are all worth the exact same and it is baffling how the FIA has been striving to shoehorn elements to artificially recreate the required circumstances for extraordinary races. Even if they had succeeded with less tacked-on solutions, the absolute purpose of Formula 1, to have the best driver-team combination winning, should not be overshadowed by a philosophy to appease a generation of fans’ abysmal attention span and entitlement.

There was such variety in car design back then, but it also struck the right balance between having distinguishable cars through significant shapes (sidepods, front wing, headrest etc) and not a masively unbalanced field of cars (relative to the 70s innovations, for instance). These 2012 stepped-nosed vaccum cleaners are depressing sometimes.